Recent News Highlights

Some news of the Week

The GOP budget plan that was voted on by the House a few months ago has come to an abrupt, screeching halt as lawmakers are forced to recognize that it simply will not work. The Ryan budget was passed in the House along party lines last March — and almost didn’t pass at all, as 10 Republican representatives voted with the 197 Democrats against it, making the final vote tally 221-207. Hal Rogers, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, even went so far as to state, “I believe that the House has made its choice: sequestration – and its' unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts – must be brought to an end.”

But the problem with Ryan’s budget is that it works in abstractions, and is never binding. And Republicans learned that, for the sake of saving face while going back to their districts, the heavy cuts projected in the Ryan budget just weren’t workable.” He goes on to report, “Republicans passed the unspecific outlines of the Ryan budget earlier this year, because they look good in abstraction. But when it comes to specifics, the knife cuts too deep; meanwhile, the Senate will move Thursday to the next step in its version of the THUD bill.”

Politically, this could be very good news for the Democratic Party, allowing Democratic votes to largely control the future of the federal budget:

I did a video on the CBO warning us of Romney Ryan plan and I said it then: Ryan budget cuts too much too fast and shocks our economy. Of course you know where I want those budget cuts to be: In taxpayer subsidies that otherwise wouldn’t be cut at all and AREN’T. The main boomerang in this is simple: The Republicans voted for sequestration and Ryan himself made a claim that what he voted for was bipartisanship and said that he’d been looking for a way to be bipartisan. Yet, we know that is hooey, if they really wanted to be bipartisan, they would just simply let Democrats speak in opposition to bills when they requested unanimous consent (Gohmert kept objecting) and stop putting up these petty roadblocks to Democrats in the House and Senate by filibustering bills all the time.

Speaking of House Democrats On Thursday, a group of Democratic lawmakers proposed a law to establish a Code of Conduct  for the Supreme Court. (http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/03/democrats-introduce-bill-impeach-scotus-justices-thomas-scalia.html)

It’s surely to have Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Scalia quaking in their Tea Party boots because it would mean they would actually have to be independent of political and other influences. They would also have to have the appearance of independence.  They would have to stay away from political activity. That part would be really hard.

As it stands, this law would help guarantee that Supreme Court Justices are held to the same ethical standards we expect of other judges.

When “Justice” Scalia said that the Voter Rights Act was a “racial entitlement” and said things like The Constitution wasn’t written for women and minorities, I couldn’t help but think: The Senate CONFIRMED this guy? I don’t think of voting as a racial entitlement I look at it as a DUTY to the country I love so much. I want to make sure that ALL minorities in ALL states have the ability to vote for the person that they want to vote for, not be blocked from even GETTING to the ballot box by long lines, onerous restrictions like the one proposed by the GOP dominated Legislature and signed by Pat McCrory. So called “Justice” Thomas also voted to gut Sec 4 of the Civil Rights Act so that voter intimidation and suppression can continue. His wife Ginny also is involved in some organizations that could be bringing matters before him. This alone should disqualify him as a judge from those cases, especially the Monsanto one where he voted in favor. Conservatives don’t have impartiality for the most part.

Justices Thomas and Scalia who attended a few partisan fundraisers also ruled in favor of the conservatives raising questions about their independence.  This was especially true in Citizens United because that ruling undid decades of established law.

Questions about Thomas and Scalia’s judicial independence are nothing new.  We saw it when both Supreme Court Justices attended a  Koch Brothers fundraiser in 2010 and the Federalist Society fundraiser  they attended in 2011, Thomas’ failure to disclose the sources Ginni’s income for six years also came out in 2011.    A code of ethics for the Supreme Court is a bill whose time came a few years ago and has increasing importance given Ginni Thomas’s involvement with Groundswell.

And the evidence has been piling up for years. I wonder what it takes for a judge to be impeached, but it is very likely that if the Senate is supposed to intervene, we will see a filibuster happening somewhere. I say if Repubes do so, bring it again and again until there is a vote or do a talking filibuster—which should be brought back. If they are tired of hearing about it, they can just vote to end the filibuster and go on to the next thing. Another part of filibuster reform should be a limit to the amount of filibusters that can be used in a period of a House term. I want to see these two ideologues off of the Supreme Court. More than likely Obama would put someone on the bench from the DC Circuit court which is usually a place they are nominated from

I don’t know who I’d pick for the bench but I know Kamala Harris is one I’d keep an eye on.

 

And speaking of Judges (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/02/2407521/obama-finally-getting-serious-about-naming-judges-that-could-be-on-the-supreme-court-someday/)

Not long after Srinivasan joined the bench, the President announced three more nominees — Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins — to the DC Circuit court. Millett’s record of advocacy on behalf of big business is unlikely to bring joy into the hearts of Obama’s progressive base, but she is among the leading Supreme Court advocates in the country and she too is young enough to have plenty of time to prove herself on a lower court. Her fellow nominee Nina Pillard needs no seasoning to prove herself. She’s a leading feminist scholar who litigated and won a pair of important women’s rights victories in the Supreme Court.

And then, August 1st, President Obama named two younger former Supreme Court clerks — Michelle Friedland and John Owens — to seats on the Ninth Circuit.

This should prove interesting and it remains to be seen what kind of fortitude the Senate Democrats will have in making sure these candidates aren’t filibustered. Now, the DC Circuit Court currently is 4-4 split and Obama’s nominees will guarantee a liberal bent to the Court. Now Ted Cruz has accused Obama of “court packing” but what that refers to is stacking the court by ADDING SEATS, not filling vacant ones. Filling vacant seats is what a President is required to do

 
SPOTLIGHT ON THE BIGGEST NEW PILE OF COWPLOP:

Harry Alford is the newest pile of crap I’ve discovered. I saw him trying to chew out Barbara Boxer for telling him that black groups and diverse groups told her that fracking isn’t good for the community. After Alford had testified that clean energy was a fiction, of course the National Black Chamber of Commerce is bought and paid for by big business like the Chamber of Commerce, Boxer offered resolutions from the NAACP, Pew Research Group, CEO of 100 Black Men of Atlanta that endorsed clean energy being able to bring jobs to urban areas. He went off the deep end because she read resolutions from other black groups that disagreed with him and he made it about race, that video is here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FoekBjhtWE

And he’s at it again….with tough words for Obama mainly on the spending spending, spending. The video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NIX2i5JyYE is about Obama and how he supposedly never had a job (he worked as a community organizer with his wife) and doesn’t get it. He also said that he dogs successful people (echoes of you didn’t build that and wealth redistribution) Hannity then says that black people have been hurt by his policies the most and plays sympathetic to black people yet he made Trayvon Martin seem like a crook because he had a fight in school and smoked weed. Also, Colin Powell did a brilliant smack down of Bill O Reilly when he protests: Why do you think of me only as an African American? Why can’t you think of me as an American? Sounds like they only think of him as an American when they’re not talking to him about Obama

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